Make Chive Pesto While the Sun Shines

This is the time of year when there are chives, chives and more chives!  

When I was a little girl, my mom would always say, "You gotta make hay while the sun shines."  Maybe some of you have heard that phrase.  Even if you haven't, you get the idea: it is best to complete a task or harvest your crop while you can, before time runs out and the moment to harvest or complete the task passes.

Well, we are not talking about hay.  We are talking about chives! 

 

Chive patch beside the All Peoples Greenhouse

As summer progresses and it gets hotter outside, the chive flowers dry up and the chive leaves sometimes get a little tough or even turn brown.  So, in June, while we have nice, fresh, juicy green chives in abundance, it is good to DO something with them.  Then we can enjoy them all year around.

We already learned how to make chive flower vinegar in a previous chive story.  Let's see what else we can do with chives!

Did you know you can freeze chives?  Cut small bunches from your plant with scissors.  Sort and wash the chives with cold water. Dry them with a clean dish towel.  

After you cut your chives from the plants, spread them
out on your counter and pick out any brown ones.  You can 
use a scissors to cut any brown tips off of otherwise
perfectly good green chives.

Wash the chives really well, then dry them with a towel.

Cut the clean, dry chives into small pieces and freeze them.  I wrap little packets of them in wax paper and store them in a container in my freezer.  Then, in the winter, when I want to make baked potato soup or a stew, I can pull out a little chive packet and dump the frozen chives right in.

Little frozen chive packets

When I harvested my chives the other day, I accidentally cut a few of the flower stems too.  That's OK.  Those stems are not good to eat, but you can set them aside while the flowers dry.  Then carefully turn the flowers upside down over a bowl to catch the chive seeds.  You can save those seeds to plant chives in a new location next year or to share with a friend!  Chive plants are perennial, and should come back year after year if you take good care of them.

These chive flowers are already too dry to eat.

One tasty treat you can make with green chives is pesto!  Pesto is basically a paste, made from ground up herbs, that you can use to spread on crackers or toast or as a sauce with pasta.  To make chive pesto you need a lot of chives.  Start with a small and simple recipe.

1/2 cup freshly grated cheese (Parmesan, Romano or a hard cheddar - just not a gooey cheese)

2 cups chopped chives (wash them, dry them, cut them into pieces about 1/2 inch long)

1 ounce chopped almonds (use a small handful of whole ones and chop them up)

1 small clove of garlic (chop it into a couple of chunks)

1/8 c olive oil

You really need a food processor or maybe a blender to do this.  In a processor, just use the regular knife blade.  (If you are a kid reading this, be sure to have a grown-up do the things which involve sharp tools like the processor and the knife.)

Shred/grate the cheese right in the processor.  Add the chives, almonds and garlic.  Process until it is all chopped up.  Slowly drizzle in the olive oil through the small opening as the processor is running.  You should get a pretty smooth pesto, but a little chunky is OK too.  Add salt and pepper until it tastes good to you.  

Chop the chives

It should look like this when it is ready.
See the little canning jar?  Any little clean jar
or airtight container is fine for freezing pesto.

Scoop 1/3 of the pesto into a small canning jar, and 1/3 of it into another jar. Push the pesto into the jar with a spoon and smooth the top. Pour just a touch of olive oil over the pesto and pick up the jar to swirl it over the surface.  This helps to keep your pesto green.  Put on the lids on and screw them tight and freeze.

With the 1/3 of the fresh pesto that you have left you can make yummy chive pesto pasta.  Boil some noodles in salted water.  When they are done (not mushy), drain the water and pour a bit of olive oil over them.  Stir with a wooden spoon or spatula.  Add the pesto and stir over very low heat (especially if your pesto was in the fridge for a bit) until the noodles are covered.  Add a little salt if needed.

Sprinkle a few sunflower nuts or other seeds over
your pasta to give it a little crunch.

You can experiment with making pesto using different herbs and different kinds of nuts.  This was the first year I tried making chive pesto, and I think it is one of the best kinds!  

So, have fun making Chive Pesto while the sun shines!

Submitted by Linda.  

Students in the Kids Working to Succeed program are encouraged to try this and other recipes at home.